There is also the obvious futility of the exercise: only a tiny fraction of the photons emanating from a star will reach the mirror and, even if the mirror is held at the perfect orientation, with dispersion (even if the mirror is perfectly smooth, the atmosphere is not) the probability that even one photon will make it back 'home' is effectively nil.

There is also the obvious futility of the exercise: only a tiny fraction of the photons emanating from a star will reach the mirror and, even if the mirror is held at the perfect orientation, with dispersion (even if the mirror is perfectly smooth, the atmosphere is not) the probability that even one photon will make it back 'home' is effectively nil.

Maybe off-topic, but this reminds me of the occasional media circus event when some random marine mammal is beached and then a massive rescue effort is affected to 'save' it). [[User:Danshoham|Mountain Hikes]] ([[User talk:Danshoham|talk]]) 23:41, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Maybe off-topic, but this reminds me of the occasional media circus event when some random marine mammal is beached and then a massive rescue effort is affected to 'save' it). [[User:Danshoham|Mountain Hikes]] ([[User talk:Danshoham|talk]]) 23:41, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

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I got the impression that Beret Guy wasn't trying to return the light itself back to the stars, but give the stars the same pretty image they get on Earth by "looking" at the mirror. Seems more poetic of him. Could be either or though, I guess. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.90.126|172.68.90.126]] 05:33, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Revision as of 05:33, 24 October 2016

I thought that was a picture frame, a mirror makes more sense. 184.66.160.91 08:40, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

From the light's point of view, EVERYTHING is in the same place. The whole universe in one point. {{unsigned
ip|108.162.238.114}}

Actually, I think that the universe would be a solitary plane. Since light moves only in one straight line. 173.245.54.204 02:14, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I still think it's a picture frame. 108.162.215.118 00:50, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

It's a mirror, you can see the reflection of his arms. 141.101.75.77 18:35, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

I am still of the opinion, sort of, that it is a picture frame. It seems like beret guy to make art of things we consider simple, because of the actually extraordinary circumstances that happened to make it so. The Goyim (talk) 23:35, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

This is pushing into areas beyond my expertise, but I question the validity of the assertion that the light particle will experience no time between departing the star and arriving at the planet. From what I understand, One of the pillars of relativity is that from ALL reference frames the speed of light is constant. So when we discuss things "from the point of view of a light particle" most of what we say is basically conjecture. It is impossible to have a valid reference frame moving along with a photon. To say that from the photon's point of view no time passes is to assume a reference point where the speed of light is no longer constant, but instead photons have the ability to be stationary. A stationary photon can never be observed in any valid reference frame. It is fair to say that a particle traveling at a speed infinitesimally less than the speed of light will experience almost no time between locations, but time dilation follows a curve that is only valid for speeds approaching but not including the speed of light.

---I'm not a physicist, but I'm fairly certain you can have a valid light-speed frame of reference. As I recall, that's part of the explanation for how the weak force can distinguish left-handed particles from right-handed ones. This makes no sense at first blush, because whether a particle is spinning left or right depends upon the position of the viewer. You could have one person observe a left handed particle decay while an observer at a different angle observes a right handed particle do nothing. The answer is that if the particle has no intrinsic mass, all observers would agree that it is traveling at the speed of light, and that there is a well-defined left and right (with respect to the direction of the particle's motion). This becomes immensely more complicated because it applies to particles that have no intrinsic mass, but nonetheless obtain effective mass through the Higgs mechanism (for instance, leptons). 173.245.56.165 18:16, 11 September 2015 (UTC) - NotaphysicistbutIplayoneontheinternet

There is also the obvious futility of the exercise: only a tiny fraction of the photons emanating from a star will reach the mirror and, even if the mirror is held at the perfect orientation, with dispersion (even if the mirror is perfectly smooth, the atmosphere is not) the probability that even one photon will make it back 'home' is effectively nil.
Maybe off-topic, but this reminds me of the occasional media circus event when some random marine mammal is beached and then a massive rescue effort is affected to 'save' it). Mountain Hikes (talk) 23:41, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

I got the impression that Beret Guy wasn't trying to return the light itself back to the stars, but give the stars the same pretty image they get on Earth by "looking" at the mirror. Seems more poetic of him. Could be either or though, I guess. 172.68.90.126 05:33, 24 October 2016 (UTC)